Priti Patel forced to cancel deportation flight after court intervention

Deportation drive has coincided with eight suicide attempts at detention centre near Gatwick

A general view of D Wing on the official opening of Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, next to Gatwick Airport in West Sussex. (PA)

The Home Office has been forced to cancel a migrant deportation flight after concerns were raised in court that it might be illegal.

The plane, one of a number this month, was scheduled to leave the UK on Thursday morning but was abandoned so that appeals for people onboard could be heard.

Campaigners said the flights were “dangerous and rushed”, while the Home Office claimed the legal challenges were “baseless and entirely without merit”.

Chai Patel, legal policy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “The treatment of immigration detainees in the UK is a matter of national shame.

“We are facing a global pandemic and the Home Office has chosen to focus on running dangerous and rushed deportation flights, placing vulnerable refugees at risk and prioritising speed over fairness.

“Every time a flight is stopped, we find people on it who go on to win their cases. We need to fix the broken system that tries to deport people at all costs, and we must resist all attempts to speed up unjust deportations and reduce legal protections for people who already have almost none.

“Eight human beings were so scared of what we were willing to send them back to face, that they tried to take their own lives. No one under our protection should ever feel that way again.”

The Home Office was forced to apologise this week after civil servants branded solicitors defending migrants and refugees’ rights “activist lawyers”.

A Home Office spokeswoman defended the deportation drive, telling reporters: “The government’s efforts to facilitate entirely legitimate and legal returns of people who have entered the UK through illegal routes are too often frustrated by last-minute challenges submitted hours before a scheduled flight.

“These claims are very often baseless and entirely without merit, but are given full legal consideration, leading to removal being rescheduled. This can effectively result in the timing out of a return due to stringent Dublin Regulations.

“It is right that we seek to remove migrants who have travelled through a safe country and have no right to remain in the UK.”

On Wednesday, the day before the cancelled flight, Priti Patel’s department deported 12 people – a mix of nationals from Kuwait, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Yemen. They were sent to France and Germany. On 14 August an Iranian national who arrived in Dover via dinghy was sent to the Netherlands.

Charities have reported that the poor treatment of migrants and refugees in detention centres has led to eight suicide attempts in Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick. Three people have been taken to hospital.

The Home Office was defiant when asked about the attempted suicides and said the people “had no right to remain in the UK”.

“We take the welfare of the detained individuals extremely seriously,” the spokesperson claimed.

“All immigration removal centres have trained medical staff on hand to provide medical care to those in detention. Everyone who is removed from the UK is seen by a health professional and the Home Office is notified of any individual who is not well enough to be removed.

“We make no apology for seeking to remove those who have travelled through a safe country and have no right to remain in the UK. This is part of our strategy to make this dangerous route unviable.”

Figures from the Home Office show the department has spent around £1m deporting 285 people during the pandemic.